03. Anomalisa

03. ANOMALISA

Director: Charlie Kaufman & Duke Johnson

Release date: February 4, 2016

For many, a simple word association with “Charlie Kaufman” would conjure a list of superlatives – terms like “visionary” and “genius”. And the gifted cinematic mastermind does his reputation no disservice in the moving and fiercely original Anomalisa.

The first R-rated movie to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature (disappointingly pipped by the pleasant but overrated Pixar flick Inside Out), Anomalisa is fiercely unique, poignant and abstract. At times it’s also uncomfortably intimate.

Using stop-motion puppets created with 3D printing technology, the film follows self-help author Michael Stone as he flies to a conference in Cincinnati. He’s in a state of mid-life spiritual crisis, so numbed that everyone around him literally looks and sounds the same (a device provided by veteran character actor Tom Noonan). But then he meets a shy fan who arouses his senses. Her name is Lisa Hesselman (Jennifer Jason Leigh). The two have an affair in the hotel and, at least momentarily, Michael’s existence is imbued with meaning.

Anomalisa deals with similar ideas to Lost in Translation and Up in the Air but, when channelled through these spookily life-like creations, builds a dream-like malaise that is moving, abstract and tactile.

An astoundingly original movie experience.